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Rob Colgate
Gay Wasteland
I drew the boundaries of a gay wasteland
then shared the wasteland with a drowning boy
spent eight hours there don’t remember much
except for all of it
the image of my glass filled with sparkling water
and the boy hiding at the bottom of it
bleaching tunnels for people to drive through
oh sunshine courtesan you’ll never be clear
and the flash photo of us with the straws and the panic
and the waiting to panic until I was home alone
all of the stomachs were moving in circles
all of my trees turned into trees
that I didn’t know how to name
for their deadness or their color or their virility
briefly I was a cloud raining sweet peroxide
over that dead dead lagoon
and yes sweet lakeshore I still adore you
but here I am staring at another boy
who is staring at another boy and that boy is
pink where i try to be white
just tell me how much for tickets to the show
for the archived love letters
first you see a light then you take it away
and then what a field of absence
and then the winter apartment
and then the summer apartment
then shared the wasteland with a drowning boy
spent eight hours there don’t remember much
except for all of it
the image of my glass filled with sparkling water
and the boy hiding at the bottom of it
bleaching tunnels for people to drive through
oh sunshine courtesan you’ll never be clear
and the flash photo of us with the straws and the panic
and the waiting to panic until I was home alone
all of the stomachs were moving in circles
all of my trees turned into trees
that I didn’t know how to name
for their deadness or their color or their virility
briefly I was a cloud raining sweet peroxide
over that dead dead lagoon
and yes sweet lakeshore I still adore you
but here I am staring at another boy
who is staring at another boy and that boy is
pink where i try to be white
just tell me how much for tickets to the show
for the archived love letters
first you see a light then you take it away
and then what a field of absence
and then the winter apartment
and then the summer apartment
Biography
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Rob Colgate (he/him/his) is a poet from Evanston, Illinois. He holds a degree in psychology from Yale University and has studied poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He is currently pursuing his MFA with the New Writers Project at UT Austin. His first chapbook, So Dark the Gap, was published by Tammy in March 2020 and is available online and in select bookstores. You can find him at robcolgate.com, on Twitter @YoungAdultRebel, and on Instagram @swing.sets.
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